A Hope in Vain
by O.A.I
Summary: Hope can lift us up and carry us forward through adversity, but it can also bring us crashing down when it fails us at time when it is needed most.


**(A/N) **So, I have this tendency to get distracted and drop of the map and then get hit with bout of inspiration and suddenly reappear. That's what this, sudden inspiration. I'm still working on the last chapter of The Hardest Choices; I was side tracked by my sister's wedding and then promptly forgot about writing altogether for a while. I will get that story done if it's last thing I do! Sadly I'm suffering a bit of writer's block in that area right now – blame the snarry ship. I'll get there though, eventually.

Anyway, hopefully this worth your effort to read, despite my lack of a beta reader…

P.S. I've posted this story on other fan fiction websites under the same pen name.

**Synopsis:**

Hope can lift us up and carry us forward through adversity, but it can also bring us crashing down when it fails us at time when it is needed most.

**NOTE:** This story is meant to take place after "Deathly Hollows" assuming that a certain character (You should know who.) didn't die in it.

**Warnings:** Slightly slashy undertones (Severus Snape & Harry Potter), cannon hetero pairing overtones (Severus & Lily), angst and mentions of character death.

**Disclaimer:** The Harry Potter series is copyright of J.K. Rowling and various companies, not me. This was written purely for entertainment purposes and I make no profit from it.

**A Hope In Vain**

**By **O.A.I.

As always you arrive at exactly five in the afternoon. You walk the familiar white halls giving a few nods of acknowledgement to the people you've come to recognize over the last seven years, eventually coming to the sterile white room you've memorized to the last detail.

She is waiting as always for your timely arrival; standing over the bed, running diagnostic spells on her patient. She turns at the sound of your arrival, giving you a nod of welcome before shaking her head in response to the question she knows you will ask.

You swallow the lump in your throat, your eyes coming to rest on the man lying still and silent on the white cot beside her. You nod back in thanks. She shifts and looks as though she wants to say something, but refrains, leaving the room and her patient to you.

You stare numbly at him, still silent, pale, unmoving and unresponsive as always. That there has been no change is not a surprise. You knew that this last attempt would exhaust the possibilities; that the chance of success had been minimal at best; that there would have been improvement by now if there was going to be any. Now all that is left is to wait for the end to come.

Even with all you've been able to do, countering the poisons, nullify the curse and stopping further degeneration; despite how you've tried, you haven't been able to reverse the damage already done. He is going to die.

You have failed.

You hate to admit it, but you know that it's true. You've failed him, just like you've failed at everything that has ever been truly important in your life. You failed your parents, your only real friend, your colleagues, your students, largely as a human being, and now you've failed him once again.

An ache asserts itself and you realize that against your will you had begun to hope. A foolish emotion you had thought done with years ago. Hope had never given you anything, save pain and disappointment. And now was no different. You had hoped that his luck would hold, that against the odds he would pull through. You had let early successes blind you, ignoring the inevitable truth you now have no choice but to face once again.

You know that this time there will be no miracle, no reprieve, and no incorrect assumptions. His luck and yours has run out. He is going to waste away forgotten and alone, save for you.

_He is going to die._

A part of you wants to leave, to forget that you ever knew a boy named Harry Potter, just like all the others have. To deny that he had an impact on your life. But that would mean that the years you spent protecting him, fighting for him, and with him, never happened. That the woman you did it for never died for him. That she never left you behind. That you never met her. That she never existed at all. And _that_ is something you cannot do.

You know that a great part of your life and how you've lived it is because of him. A part of you hates him for it; for being James Potter's son, for killing Lily, for his recklessness. But as you look at him now, a pale vision of the boy you had once known, you find that you no longer care about such foolishness; you only whish that it had been different. That you had been different. That you hadn't made so many mistakes, that you hadn't been so petty, that you had tried harder, that you had been more like Lily. That now it wasn't too late.

You allow the sudden wetness in your eyes to flow down your face; an expression of weakness you would normally never allow yourself to show in the presence of another, no matter the company's state of consciousness. But you also know that you are probably the only person left who will. So you let yourself mourn.

You mourn him, for having to face death once again. You mourn that no one else will care when he is gone. You mourn that with his death there will be nothing left of Lily. And you mourn yourself; that you were not enough to keep and protect either one of them.

You stand there silently remembering until you grow stiff, held up only by the flood of your memories. Without thinking you step forward and take his limp hand in yours, holding it tightly in unspoken goodbye. You don't know when he will take his last breath, today, tomorrow, or years from now, but you do know that you will come back until the day he is gone. The world may have forgotten him, but you will not.

(The End)

**(A/N) **Question: Is this slashy like I think it is? Or is my current obsession with Snarry coloring my vision? Either way, I hope you liked it.


End file.
